The Three Mulla-mulgars Part 20

"What is a gun, Nizza-neela?"

"What then--what then?" cried Nod impatiently.

"Two nights afterwards," continued the old Mulgar, "some of my people came up to the other end of the gorge of the Long-noses. There they found him, cold and bleeding, in his second sleep. The Long-noses had pelted him with stones till they were tired. But it was not their stones that had driven him back. He would not answer when the Men of the Mountains came whispering, but sat quite still, staring under his black arches, as if afraid. After two days more he rose up again, crying out in another voice, like a Moh-mulgar. So we came again with him, two 'ropes' of us, along the walks the traveller knows. And towards evening, with his bag of nuts and water-bottle, in his rags of Juzana, he left us once more. Next morning my father and my people came one or two together to where we sit, and--what did they see?"

"_What_ did they see?" Nod repeated, with frightened eyes.

"They did see only this," said Ghibba: "footsteps--one-two, one-two, just as the Mulla-mulgar walks--all across the snow beyond the thorn-trees. But they did see also other footsteps, slipping, sliding, and here and there a mark as if the traveller had fallen in the snow, and all these coming _back_ from the thorn-trees. And at the beginning of the ice-path was a broken bundle of nuts strewn abroad, but uneaten, and the shreds of a red jacket. Water-bottle there was none, and Mulgar there was none. We never saw or heard of that Mulgar again."

"O Man of the Mountains," cried Nod, "where, then, is my father now?"

Ghibba stooped down and peered under his bandage close into Nod's small face. "I believe, Eengenares, your father--if that Mulgar was your father--is happy and safe now in the Valleys of Tishnar."

"But," said Nod, "he must have come back again out of his wits with fear of the Country of Shadows."

"Why," said Ghibba, "a brave Mulgar might come back once, twice, ten times; but while one foot would swing after the other, he might still arise in the morning and try again. 'On, on,' he would say. 'It is better to die, going, than to live, come-back.'"

And Nod comforted himself a little with that. Perhaps he would yet meet his father again, riding on Tishnar's leopard-bridled Zevveras; perhaps--and he twisted his little head over his shoulder--perhaps even now his Meermut haunted near.

"But tell me--tell me _this_, Mountain-mulgar: What was the fear which drove him back? What feet so light ran after him that they left no imprint in the snow? Whose shadow-hands tore his jacket to pieces?"

Ghibba threw down his bundle of twigs, and rubbed his itching arms with snow.

"That, Mulla-mulgar," he said, smiling crookedly, "we shall soon find out for ourselves. If only I had the Wonderstone hung in my beard, I should go singing."

Nod opened his mouth as if to speak, and shut it again. He stared hard at those bandaged eyes. He glanced across at the black, huddling thorn-trees; at the Mountain-mulgars, going and returning with their f.a.ggots; at Thimble lying dozing in his litter. All the while betwixt finger and thumb he squeezed and pinched his Wonderstone beneath the lappet of his pocket.

Should he tell Ghibba? Should he wait? And while he was fretting in doubt whether or no, there came a sharp, short yelp, and suddenly out of the thorn-trees skipped a Mountain-mulgar, and came scampering helter-skelter over the frozen snow, yelping and chattering as he ran.

Following close behind him lumbered Thumb, who hobbled a little way, then stopped and turned back, staring.

"Why do you dance in the snow, my poor child? What ails you?" mocked Ghibba, when the Mountain-mulgar had drawn near. "Have you p.r.i.c.ked your little toe?"

The Mountain-mulgar cowered panting by the fire which Ghibba had kindled. And for a long while he made no answer. So Nod scrambled on his fours up the crusted slope of snow. He pa.s.sed, as he went, two or three of the Men of the Mountains whimpering and whispering. But none of them could tell him what they feared. At last he reached Thumb, who was still standing, stooping in the snow, staring silently towards the cl.u.s.tering thorn-trees.

"What is it, brother?" said Nod, as he came near. "What is it, brother?

Why do you crouch and stare?"

"Come close, Ummanodda," said Thumb. "Tell me, is there anything I see?"

They hobbled a little nearer, and stood stooping together with eyes fixed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "WHAT IS IT, BROTHER? WHY DO YOU CROUCH AND STARE?"]

These thorn-trees, as dense as holly, but twisted and huddled, grew not close together, but some few paces apart, as if they feared each other's company. Between them only purest snow lay, on which evening shed its light. And now that the sun was setting, leaning his beams on them from behind Moot, their gnarled and spiny branches were all aflame with scarlet. It was utterly still. Nod stood with wide-open eyes. And softly and suddenly, he hardly knew how or when, he found himself gazing into a face, quiet and lovely, and as it were of the beauty of the air. He could not stir. He had no time to be afraid. They stood there, these clumsy Mulgars, so still that they might have been carved out of wood.

Yet, thought Nod afterwards, he was not afraid. He was only startled at seeing eyes so beautiful beneath hair faint as moonlight, between the thorn-trees, smiling out at him from the coloured light of sunset. Then, just as suddenly and as softly, the face was gone, vanished.

"Thumb, Thumb!" he whispered, "surely I have seen the eyes of a wandering Midden of Tishnar?"

"Hst!" said Thumb harshly; "there, there!" He pointed towards one of the thorn-trees. Every branch was quivering, every curved, speared leaf trembling, as if a flock of silvery Parrakeetoes perched in the upper branches, where there are no thorns, or as if scores of the tiny Spider-mulgars swung from twig to twig. The next moment it was still--still as all the others that stood around, afire with the last sunbeams. Yet nothing had come, nothing gone.

"Acch magloona nani, Nod," called Thumb, afraid, "lagoosla sul majeela!"

They scuttled back, without once turning their heads, to the fire, where all the Hill-mulgars were sitting. Whispering together they were, too, as they nibbled their cheese and sipped slowly from their gurgling, narrow-mouthed bags or bottles. They had carried Thimble close to the fire, and Ghibba was roasting nuts for him. Thumb and Nod came down and seated themselves beside Ghibba, but they had agreed together to say nothing of what they had seen, for fear of affrighting Thimble, who was still weak in head and body, and continually s.h.i.+vering. And Nod told his brothers all that Ghibba had told him concerning the solitary traveller.

And Thumb sat listening, heavy and still, with his great face towards the huddling thorns that wooded the height.

So they talked and talked, sitting together, round about their fire. The twigs of these thorns burn marvellous clear with colours, and at each thorn-tip, as the flame licks near, wells out and gathers a milk-pale globe of poison that, drying, bursts in the heat. So all the fire is continually a-crackle, amidst a thin smoke of a smell like nard. Never before had so bright a bonfire blazed upon these hills. For the Men of the Mountains never camp beyond the pa.s.s, and the Long-noses have not even the wits to keep a fire fed with fuel. But as the day wore on, and when all the feather-smoke had dispersed, they a.s.sembled in hundreds upon hundreds, sitting a long distance off, all their noses stuck out towards the blaze, snuffing the cloudy fragrance of the nard. But they were too much afraid of the travellers to venture near now that they were free men and out of the pa.s.s.

The sun had set, but the moon was at full, and the travellers determined to go forward at once. It was agreed that every one should carry a bundle of sticks on his shoulders, also a stout cudgel or staff; that they should march close in rows of four, with Thimble's litter in their midst; and that the Mulgar at each corner should carry a burning torch.

They made what haste they could to tie up their bundles, bottles, and f.a.ggots, so as to lose nothing of the moon's brilliance during the long night. She rode unclouded above the snow-fields when the little band of Mulgar-travellers set out. As soon as they were gone, down trooped the long-nosed Obobbomans to the fire, sniffing and scuffling, to fall asleep at last, higgledy-piggledy, in a great squirrel-coloured ring around the glowing embers, their noses towards the fire.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XIX

The travellers marched slowly, keeping sharp watch, their cudgels ready in their hands. Behind them, paled by the moonlight, shook the fiery silver of the Salemnagar. With this at their backs and that North Pole, Moot, in huge congealment, a little to their left, they made their way at an angle across the open snow, and approached the tangled thickets. Here they walked more closely together, with heads aslant and tails in air, like little old men, like pedlars, blinking and spying, wis.h.i.+ng beyond measure they were sitting in comfort around their watch-fire. The farther they zigzagged betwixt the thorns, the more doubtful grew the way. For the thorn-trees rise all so equal in height and thickness they often with their tops shut out the stars, and there was nothing by which the travellers could mark what way they went.

Still they pressed on, their hairy faces to the night-wind, which Ghibba had observed before starting was drifting from the north. They shuffled crisply over the snow, coughing softly, and gurring in their throats, winding in and out between the trees, and casting lean, gigantic shadows across the open s.p.a.ces. For so dazzling bright the moon gleamed, she almost put out the smoky flare of their torches. But it gave the Mulgars more courage to march encompa.s.sed with their own light. Their packs were heavy, the thickets sloped continually upward. But the poison-thorns curl backward beneath the drooping hood of their leaves by night--in the hours, that is, when, it is said, they distil their poison--so the travellers were no longer fretted by their stings. Thus, then, they gradually advanced till Moot was left behind them, and out of the grey night rose Mulgarmeerez, mightiest of Arakkaboa's peaks, whose snows have known no Mulgar footprints since the world began.

Only the whish of the travellers' feet on the snow was to be heard, when suddenly all with one accord stopped dead, as if a voice had cried, "Halt!"

Their torches faintly crackled, their smoke rising in four straight pillars towards the stars. And they heard, as if everywhere around them in the air, clear yet marvellously small voices singing with a thin and pining sound like gla.s.s. It floated near, this tiny, mult.i.tudinous music--so near that the travellers drew back their face with wide-open eyes. Then it seemed out of the infinite distance to come, echoing across the moonlit spars that towered above their heads.

And Ghibba said softly, jerking up his bundle and peering around him from beneath his eye-bandage: "Courage, my kinsmen! it is the danger-song of Tishnar we hear, who loves the fearless."

At this one of the Men of the Mountains thrust up his pointed chin, and said, wagging his head: "Why do we march like this at night, Mulla-moona? These are not our mountain-pa.s.ses. Let us camp here while we are still alive, and burn a great watch-fire till morning."

"You have f.a.ggots, Cousin of a Skeeto," said Ghibba. "Kindle a fire for yourself, and catch us up at daybreak."

The Mountain-men laughed wheezily, for now the singing had died away. On they pushed again. But now the thorn-trees gathered yet closer together, so that the Mulgars could no longer walk in company, but had to straggle up by ones or twos as best they could. Still up and up they clambered, laying hold of the thick tufts of leaves sticky with poison to drag themselves forward. Many times they had to pause to recover their breath, and Nod turned giddy to look down on the moon-dappled forest through which they had so heavily ascended. Thus they continued, until, quite without warning, Thumb, who was leading, broke out into one loud, hard, short bark of fear, for he suddenly found himself standing beneath contorted branches on the verge of another and wider plateau of snow. He stood motionless, leaning heavily on his cudgel, the knuckles of his other hand resting in the snow, his breath caught back, and his head stooping forward between his shoulders, staring on and on between astonishment and fear.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FOR THERE ... STOOD AS IF FROZEN IN THE MOONLIGHT THE MONSTROUS SILVER-HAIRED MEERMUTS OF MULGARMEEREZ, GUARDING THE ENCHANTED ORCHARDS OF TISHNAR.]

For there, all along the opposite ridge, as it were on the margin of an enormous platter, stood as if frozen in the moonlight the monstrous silver-haired Meermuts of Mulgarmeerez, guarding the enchanted orchards of Tishnar. Thumb stood in deep shadow, for instantly, at sight of these shapes, as one by one the travellers came straggling up together, they quenched their hissing torches in the snow. No sign made the Meermuts that they had seen the little quaking band of lean and ragged Mulgars.

But even a squirrel cracking a nut could have been heard across these windless and icy alt.i.tudes. And even now it seemed that bark of fear went echoing from spur to spur. The wretched Mulgars could only stand and gaze in helpless confusion at the phantoms, whose eyes shone dismally in the moon beneath their silver hair and great purple caps.

The Meermuts stood, as it were, for a living rampart all down the untrodden snow towards the great Pit of Mulgarmeerez till lost in the faint grey mists of the mountains.

"What's to be done now, Prince of Ladder-makers?" said Thumb presently.

"Are we not weary of wandering? There's room for us all in those great shadowy bellies."

"Itthiluthi thoth 'Meermut' onnoth anoot oonoothi," lisped one of the Moona-mulgars--that is to say, in their own language, "But maybe these Meermuts gnaw before swallowing."

As for Ghibba, he feigned that his eyes were too weak and sore, and peered in vain beneath his bandages. "Tell me what's to be seen, Mulla-mulgar," he said. "Why do we linger? The frost's in my toes. Up with fresh torches and go forward."

Thumb grunted, but made no answer. Then Ghibba drew softly back into the deeper shadow, and the rest of the Mulgars, who by now were all come up, stood whispering, some in perplexity, not knowing what to do; some itching and sniffing to go forward, and one or two for turning back. One Moona-mulgar, indeed, mewing like a cat in his extreme fear, when he had heard Thumb's sudden bark, had turned lean shanks and hairy arms and fled down by the way they had come. Fainter and fainter had grown the sounds of snapping twigs, until all again was silent.